As with most corporations, we are recruiting. EVE is a constant churn of old and new members coming and going with the ebb and flow of their real life. We have never been a large corporation by any means and certainly not one when it comes to active members online at the same time. We are lucky to break a dozen people on any given time of day. Hoever, we recently had a surge of new members, some very new to EVE itself. I had a conversation with one the other day that struck me as something worth sharing. He was frustrated with his progress in EVE, especially in light of my last post. Stores of "glorious" battles are often frustrating for those who feel they cannot be a part of that experience. What follows is a paraphrasing of the ideas I was trying to communicate to him in response.

Playing solo in a group

While this may be specific to our corporation, we are not a single minded hive. Our corporation is not defined by doing any single thing. As such, when any given player is logging on, there may not be other players engaged in an activity that interests them or is conducive to joining up. This requires players in our corporation to have in mind a set of activities that interest them that they can do when no one else is available. This may seem counter-productive and a self-fulfilling prophecy of breeding a corporation of solo players. Perhaps, but the reality of our corporation is that our members are often time limited and with semi-random schedules for playing EVE. It can make it difficult then to have activities that occur with any regularity.

For new players who already have their options curtailed by their lack of EVE experience or raw skill points, this can be a terribly frustrating adjustment. But it doesn't have to be

Learn to love scanning

If you don't like to scan, you probably want to reconsider your membership in a wormhole corporation, especially ours where people who simply ride on the backs of others work is frowned upon. Scanning is life in wormhole space. You will almost immediately have zero content at your disposal if you refuse to or will not get out into space and scan your chain. This can often include entering normal k-space such as null-sec or low-sec and looking for more wormhole connections there.

Scanning the chain is basically a binary operation. It either results in content or it doesn't. There really isn't any other way to look at it. Whether that content is useful to you is the question.

This is the fit I use for the T2 Covops specifically for scanning as well as being prepared for some hacking. It isn't the ship I normally fly in but does one thing, scanning, really well.

As my last post outlined, jumping into previously unconnected wormholes is perhaps the best way to stumble onto targets for PvP minded pilots. Even a lowly scanning ship can serve the most important role in any combat, getting eyes on the target, knowing their fleet, and providing the warp-in for corpmates. This requires only the ability to fly a covops capable ship and since the introduction of the Astero, that is a short training period even for the newest of players. That Astero is also a fairly capable combat ship depending on the target. I've even had the experience of tanking a T3 strategic cruiser in mine and holding it down while others came to engage. That is definitely something that will get your blood pumping.

While a little expensive for a true newbro, one example of an Astero fit that can be used for scanning as well as some light combat :

Of course meta or T2 items could be substituted for various components here but I have found this setup to be very resilient against similarly sized targets as well as larger ones who are not well equipped to fight frigates.

Hidden treasures

With the introduction of null-sec data and relic sites to lower-class wormhole space, the opportunities for new players to make income in space expanded greatly. Through training Hacking V and flying perhaps the same covops ship used for scanning, a player can easily handle hacking sites that can be very lucrative. Only through scanning can you find these sites, confirm the relative safety of the system, and collect your loot.

In addition to hacking, simply switching ships to a very inexpensive Venture can get you 20 minute windows of gas mining in any gas site in wormhole space. Depending on the markets, these gasses can be some of the most lucrative mining in the game for the time spent. All done in a very inexpensive ship that can be trained for in days as I found recently through our killboard. That pilot was 6 days old and mining gas in our wormhole. Yes, his adventure ended badly for him but you have to admire his willingness to brave the unknown.

The main difference here is are the rigs for hacking as well as the midslots optimized to scan cans to determine their contents as well as a warp scrambler when you need to serve as tackle. This is more my "go-to" frigate for scanning/hacking/exploration than my dedicated scanning ship. I use the other Helios more specifically for hunting targets when the extra scan strength is needed.

That's all for now, but in Part 2 I will explore some more "advanced" options and discuss getting newbros into PvE as well as PvP. For now though, if you are a wormhole newbro, get your scanning ship and get into space. Your corpmates and hopefully your wallet will thank you.

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